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In September 2001, a young Iranian journalist, Hossein Derakhshan, devised and set up one of the first weblogs in his native language of Farsi. In response to a request from a reader, he created a simple how-to-blog guide in Farsi, thereby setting in motion a community's surreal flight into free speech; online commentaries that the leading Iranian author and blogger, Abbas Maroufi, calls our "messages in bottles, cast to the winds".

With an estimated 75,000 blogs, Farsi is now the fourth most popular language for keeping online journals. A phenomenal figure given that in neighbouring countries such as Iraq there are less than 50 known bloggers.

The internet has opened a new virtual space for free speech in a country dubbed the "the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East", by Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF). Through the anonymity and freedom that weblogs can provide, those who once lacked voices are at last speaking up and discussing issues that have never been aired in any other media in the Islamic world. Where else in Iran could someone dare write, as the blogger Faryadehmah did, "when these mullahs are dethroned ... it will be like the Berlin wall coming down ..."?

In the last five years up to 100 media publications, including 41 daily newspapers, have been closed by Iran's hardline judiciary. Yet today, with tens of thousands of Iranian weblogs there is an alternative media that for the moment defies control and supervision of speech by authoritarian rule....

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In April 2003, when Sina Motallebi, a web-journalist, was imprisoned, Iran became the first government to take direct action against bloggers. Sina's arrest was only the beginning and many more bloggers and online journalists have been arrested since. As RSF puts it: "In a country where the independent press has to fight for its survival on a daily basis, online publications and weblogs are the last media to fall into the authorities' clutches ... through arrests and intimidation, the Iranian authorities are now trying to spread terror among online journalists".

Recent reports have also suggested that the authorities are seeking to implement a national intranet, which would separate Iran from the world wide web. But technological trends may be working in favour of free speech, as even China has not been able to fully contain the free flow of information.

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Iranian weblogs allow us to eavesdrop on the personal conversations of a closed society, providing a unique momentary glimpse into the inner struggles that a burgeoning young population face, the steady shift of an ideological state, and a revolution within the revolution. As the political satirist and star of Iranian blogsphere, Ebrahim Nabavi, puts it: "After 25 years fortunately we have exported our revolutionary ideas to the whole world ... Europe, America and Asia ... but we have exported all of it ... so there is none left at home ... but the leaders of our country cannot be bothered to announce this to the world".

Jerusalem Post:
Russian forces blew up bridges on the Euphrates river held by Iranian militias several days ago, according to a report. This is the first time the Russians attacked Iranian targets in Syria.

The information came from a senior Syrian official who refused to be identified, and was reported in Bas News, a Kurdish news website.
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This would certainly put the Iranian operations in Syria at risk. The story does not indicate what prompted the attack. Israel has been making it clear to Syria and to Russia that it would not tolerate Iranian forces in Syria it deemed a threat to its security.

Just across the border from the U.S., drug gangs slaughtered 23 people — hanging nine from a bridge and decapitating 14 more, whose heads were found stashed in coolers near the town hall.

The four men and five women discovered dangling from the Colosio Bridge in Nuevo Laredo were handcuffed, blindfolded and bore signs of torture.

A banner hanging from the bridge claimed the victims — between the ages of 25 and 30 — had committed an April 24 car bombing outside a police station, Mexican media reported.

Hours later, the 14 headless bodies were found in black bags in a gray van parked near a trade association.

The heads were in three ice chests found three hours later.

Nuevo Laredo, on the Texas border, is the site of a vicious feud between the Zeta and Gulf cartels.

Last month, another 14 bodies were found abandoned outside the mayor's office.
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The drug cartels are fighting over access to the I-35 corridor which begins in Laredo and runs up the middle of the United…